


Midlife Crisis, Averted

by Taricha



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taricha/pseuds/Taricha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well," Connor said, swerving a little harder just for the sheer fun of it, "perhaps if you hadn't dashed off in front of a bloody Nimravid instead of waiting for your team, you wouldn't have gotten that nasty, nauseating concussion, hmm?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midlife Crisis, Averted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heeroluva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heeroluva/gifts).



> Primevalathon entry, for heeroluva.

"Morning," Connor said, sipping at his tea and thumbing through the paper. He pulled his feet off the other chair, but Nick didn't sit next to him, instead stalking to the kettle and punching buttons with increasing agitation.

"This bloody thing is a piece of shit," Nick grumbled, his voice still a low growl from sleep.

"Lucky I already made some then." Connor grabbed the pot on the table, wiggling it enticingly.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Connor - you've got to keep it on the burner or it gets cold." Nick took the pot anyway, liquid splashing about as he hastily poured himself a mug. He must have spilled it on himself, judging by the stream of cusswords coming out of his mouth, but the glare he shot off as he stuck his finger in his mouth was all for Connor.

"Guess it was still hot after all," Connor mused.

Nick let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, are you coming? We're going to be late."

"Yes, yes, right, fine." Connor folded his paper and grabbed his bag. Honestly, Nick was such a bloody grouch before he'd had his morning coffee. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

*****

The computer they'd given him wasn't as big as Jess's, a fact that Connor lamented only because when there was a lull in work he liked to play Warcraft, which just didn't look as cool on only one screen. It was a decent enough computer despite that, he supposed, though would it have killed them to go for a better processor? Right now, flipping back and forth between pages and pages of programming and data, it would have been really nice to have that extra power.

A hip rested itself on the side of the desk, and Connor stared blankly at it before the owner of said hip cleared her throat. He jumped only a little, his mind requiring a bit of a nudge before it shifted out of binary and recognized the expression on Abby's face. "Oh no, what have they eaten now?"

She frowned. "What?"

"You've got your 'I'm so disappointed in you Connor' face on, which usually means Sid and Nancy have eaten your favorite pair of shoes, but you wanted to keep them too, Abby, and you said your flat was okay with pets-"

"Connor, shut up."

He shut up. Even now that they weren't dating, she still had complete and utter control of that reflex.

"It's not Sid and Nancy, it's Cutter. What did you do to him?"

Connor gaped, also a reflex: nobody was supposed to know about his relationship with the professor, and he'd gotten pretty good at showing surprise whenever anyone came close to that conclusion. Well, he thought so. Nick said he looked more like a fish bumping its face against glass, but Nick had no heart for the talent of acting. "I do not know what you are talking about."

"Jess is crying because Cutter told her that her shoes are ugly. Becker and Stephen are off shooting things so that they don't have to tolerate his snapping, and even fucking Burton has run away for the day. So, whatever you did, un-bloody-do it!" She gave him an evil expression and stomped off.

"But," Connor said to no one in particular, "I didn't do anything!"

****

"Connor, perhaps you could try not driving like a maniac, please," Cutter hissed, his knuckles white where they clutched the passenger door.

"Well," Connor said, swerving a little harder just for the sheer fun of it, "perhaps if you hadn't dashed off in front of a Nimravid instead of waiting for your team, you wouldn't have gotten that nasty, nauseating concussion, hmm?"

"You would have rather let it eat that little girl?" This was the story that Nick had been sticking to since they left the anomaly site (or rather, since Lester told Connor that either he made the professor leave, or they would have the medic knock him out).

"What little girl? Oh, the one that was sitting on the corner and a good fifty feet away from danger? Or was there another child that all of us somehow missed?"

"Connor," he whinged, drawing out the syllables of his name like it would be endearing somehow.

"Shut up," Connor snapped, and suddenly, surprisingly, Nick did. Apparently he'd learned something from Abby after all, then.

***

Connor hauled Nick by the elbow into the house, pushing him into a kitchen chair where he slumped petulantly as Connor managed to simultaneously snarl and make dinner. He knew it wasn't particularly mature to smash pots together and aggressively ladle the spaghetti sauce, but he'd watched his boyfriend almost get eaten today. Every one of Nick's noise-induced winces made Connor feel just a little bit better.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong with you, or will I have to beat it out of you with this ladle?" Conner brandished the cutlery with as much menace as he could. It was flinging sauce everywhere, which he hoped added to the effect but probably all the cringing and pouting that was going across Nick's face was due to the mess dripping down onto the floor.

"Nothing is wrong," he mumbled tiredly, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "Just sit down, Connor, I'm starving."

Connor felt all of the bravado slip out of him and dribble down onto the floor with the growing pile of sauce. This thing between them was new, unpolished, and as much as he liked to pretend it was solid and permanent they'd only been at it for a couple of months. Connor liked it, wouldn't want anything else, but that didn't mean that Nick felt the same. "Did I do something?"

"No. Nothing is wrong-"

"You can't tell me nothing is wrong when you've been crazy all day," Connor said, putting the ladle back in the pot.

"It's nothing!"

"If I did something, you have to tell me. That's in the contract! You know, the boyfriend-boyfriend contract."

"I didn't sign a contract."

"It's unspoken," Connor snapped, then folded. "Are you going to break up with me?"

Nick looked up from his hands, his eyes wide and startled. "What? No, Connor, of course not."

"Because I have a powerpoint presentation of reasons why you shouldn't, and it's only fair that I get to show that before you make your decision." Connor's stomach twisted at the thought, and he gripped the oven door and turned away so he wouldn't have to look at Nick anymore.

There was quiet in the kitchen before Connor felt hands slip around his waist and lips brush the back of his neck. "I'm not breaking it off with you, Connor," Nick mumbled into his ear. "Don't be stupid. I - it's nothing like that. Nothing about you."

"Are you sick?" Connor's chest clenched with dread.

"No, I'm fine. Relax, Connor. It's nothing, it really is."

Nick pressed a trail of kisses along Connor's hairline, but Connor couldn't help but hold himself rigid with tension anyway. He'd seen Nick grumpy, seen him angry, but there was always a reason - Becker had shot a creature, Helen was around again, his funding hadn't been renewed; something. It was never just nothing.

A sigh brushed across the skin of his neck, and Nick's voice slipped back into grumpy reluctance. "Fine. I found a gray hair in the mirror this morning."

Connor blinked stupidly for a second as he tried to parse that particular information. "Our mirror has hair?"

Behind him, Nick stiffened and pulled away. Connor whirled around and grabbed him by the arms, trying really hard not to laugh as his brain finally caught up with his mouth. He ran a finger along Nick's temple, where silver was (and had been, for a while) slipping in amongst the rusty red. "I think it's dashing."

"Shut up, Connor," Nick said with a groan, but he didn't pull back. "It's... I'm too old for you."

"I find that dashing too," Connor admitted with a leer. "It's very romance novel... professor."

Nick rolled his eyes and tugged him in for a kiss. It was soft and familiar, and nowhere near enough for Connor to lose his train of thought, but a good attempt nonetheless. He let Nick kiss him and grow complacent for a few moments before pulling back just enough that they were still breathing the same airspace. "So how did you not notice your gray hairs before? Do you need glasses now too, old man?"

Nick scowled and then, unexpectedly, blushed. "It's," he started, then swallowed as his blush turned the tips of his ears brilliant red. "It's not my temples."

"A little salt mixing in with the cumin of your beard?"

"No," Nick said, his face a perfect textbook demonstration of embarrassment, "it's not my facial hair. It's, um," he lowered his gaze, and Connor realised that it was not out of mortification- it was a direction.

"I didn't even know pubic hair could turn gray!" he marveled.

"Neither did I." Nick sounded much less impressed.

Connor thought for a second, hesitating between being tactful and just being an ass. Still irritated that everyone had assumed the professor's foul mood was due to him, Connor decided to go with ass. He brushed a finger over Nick's cheekbone. "Now that you mention it, I have noticed that your ball sack has gained a few extra wrinkles..."

Nick, predictably, flushed even darker and started pulling away. Connor let him go, grinning. "Don't worry darling, I find a receding hairline very sexy, even if it is in your pants."

"God, Connor," Nick said, slipping in the spaghetti sauce on the way to his chair. "Can't we just eat our meal like regular people? Is that too much to ask?"

"You know, I don't think most people would run in front of a 35 million year old cat-like carnivore with canines the size of steak knives, all because they found a gray hair."

"Pubic hair," Nick corrected. "Much worse."

Connor rolled his eyes and dished out the pasta. "Point is, I don't think you should be the judge on how normal people eat their dinner."

Nick took a bite. "I think most of them eat it warm," he said, poking the pasta with a disappointed look that Connor absolutely knew was a pout.

"You lost the privilege of having warm food when you made Jess cry," Connor said primly, even if he wanted to microwave it himself. "So shut up and eat your food. I hear that it's better cold for your aging digestive tract anyway."

Nick glared at him, but the expression softened into something sadder, something more real. "Connor..."

Connor sighed. "Oh honestly, would you shut up? Do you think I didn't know you were older than me when we started, you know," he made a lewd hand gesture. "I don't care, Nick. I really don't. I don't care that you have wrinkles around your eyes-"

"Hey!"

"-and I won't care when you've got liver spots either. I love you, so it doesn't matter to me." He promptly stared at his food in alarm, realising that yet again his mouth had gotten ahead of his brain.

"Oh," Nick said softly, and Connor dared to look back up at him and was promptly struck dumb by the wonder in his eyes. "Oh. Well."

"Yeah," Connor said, his heart swelling in his stupidly small chest. "So no more running in front of carnivores."

"Right." Nick smiled, warm and sweet, reaching across the table to briefly tangle their fingers together. "I promise."


End file.
